When I saw Dark Void, the first thing that popped into my head was The Rocketeer. There’s just something about jetpacks that reminds me of film, and no matter how much someone dresses it up in moody lighting and a… Continue Reading →

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When I saw Dark Void, the first thing that popped into my head was The Rocketeer.
There's just something about jetpacks that reminds me of film, and no matter how much someone dresses it up in moody lighting and a sci-fi theme, what comes back to me is Bill Campbell with that dopey-looking grin on his face.
But after checking the game out a little longer, my second impression morphed into Lost Planet. Maybe it was third-person perspective or the way the hero the hero flew in and around the stage. Whatever it was, Dark Void was looking more appealing.
By the time senior producer Morgan Gray showed me how the protagonist can hijack a flying saucer, thoughts of The Rocketeer were far from my mind and I saw Dark Void as game with its own murky identity.
The plot unfolds when a cargo pilot crashes in the Bermuda Triangle. Upon landing, the cargo pilot (our hero) is transported into a nightmare void that's run by these strange alien creatures. He joins a rebel group and is now trying to escape this strange dimension and get home.
To help him through that, he has a jetpack, which I mentioned earlier. It provides an interesting degree of freedom to the levels. Players can fly out of battle, fly up cliffs and bank left and right between odd inspires in the world.
With such a degree of freedom, I asked Gray how the developer, Airtight Games, would design the levels. I mean couldn't you just skip whole sections with the jetpack? He said that though the jetpack will offer freedom, it allows presents a hazard to players.
Flying out in the open makes him a target for everyone else. It sounds like they'll limit flying in areas by making your character a bullet magnet. Call it a no-fly zone.
The other noteable thing I saw in the demonstration is the "vertical cover system" that Airtight Games is touting. Because of the jetpack, the cargo pilot has an ability to scale nearly vertical cliffs.
This presents an intersting camera angle, where he'll take cover from the bottom of ledges and either shoot at enemies or grab them and throw them to the ground. It's a novel, if dizzying, take on the whole cover system.
The only bad news for fans of the game is that it's still a ways out. According to Gray, Dark Void is still a year out.]]>http://blogs.mercurynews.com/aei/2008/07/22/e3-dark-void-reminds-me-of-rocketeer/feed/1DarkVoid_JetpackEscape_bmp_jpgcopyDarkVoid_SkyjackStruggle_bmp_jpgcopyDark Void